Halford & Brough in the Morning - Twelve Teams, Facing Off

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), plus they preview today's Men's Hockey action at the Olympics where Canada takes on Czechia with Sportsnet Olympic hockey reporter Sean Reynolds (28:02). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to Halford and Brough. Leonard down the left alley, spins in the free-doll line, right elbow jumper for the lead, puts it in with two seconds left. Pauline Leonard is lethal. I've only won one Super Bowl, and that was my quarterback. So do I love my quarterback? Yeah, but is he a good person? No? And you got anything to say by the city of Seattle?

I got two words for you. Good morning, Vancouver, 601 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford, it is Brough. It is SportsNet 650. We are coming live from the Kintech Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning.

Good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brother of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. DFCRA debt, if you do, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by up to 80%

with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands. That's trustee.com. We are an hour one of the The program, Hour 1 is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle. You get paid.

Visit the Middle 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to live from the Kintech Studio, new year, new opportunity for comfort with orthotics from Kintech. Got a lot to get into you on the program today. The guest list this morning, the Duick Morning Drive, brought to by the Duick Auto Group, begins at 630. Sean Reynolds is going to join us from Milan, SportsNet Reporter and host on Hockey Night Canada. Sean is in the line obviously covering the men's and women's Olympic hockey.

The women are underway right now. No spoilers yet. We'll save it for later in the show. The men take on, check you at 7.40 our time this morning. So we will talk to Sean roughly one hour prior to puck drop and get all the latest news, notes, lineup stuff, what have you. Sean is going to join us at 6.30. 7 o'clock. Here's an interesting one.

Stephen Hauschka is going to join the program. Remember him? Long time. Seattle Seahawks. kicker, Super Bowl champion with Seattle in 2013. He was part of this year's Super Bowl run as well, only in a, what I'm going to call a culture consultant position to Mike McDonald, a culture consultant.

Okay, so that's relevant to both talking about the Seahawks and maybe, maybe, maybe our local hockey team. Do they have a culture problem? I think they do. Patrick, do you have a culture problem that needs to be fixed? Mine are minor correction. My apologies. He's at 7.30.

7.30. Stephen Houske is going to join the program. We talk about culture with the former Seattle Seahawks kicker. And then at 8 o'clock this morning, Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Talk is going to join the program. Lots of Olympic hockey to dive into with Drancer, including Elias Pedersen and Sweden, avoiding the upset yesterday against Italy. And the Canada game will be on while we talk to Drance. We'll also go through everything else that's happened last night and this morning as the Olympic tournament is now fully underway. We are giving away a $250 gift. card to Golf Town as well today. Caller number 5 at 8 a.m. is going to win a $250 gift card to Golf Town. 604-280-0-650. That number again, 604-280-0-650. You want me to do the Golf Town bit, don't you?

Take the kids to Golf Town. Mom, Dad, can we go to Golf Town? Sure we can. Now that we have a $250 gift card, caller number 5 at 8am is going to win that one. We've got a lot to get into on the program today. Not even going to work in reverse on the guest list. Without further ado, Lattie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night?

No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? Missed it? You missed that?

What? What happened is Bratzi Uvai, the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.com. The highly anticipated men's Olympic hockey tournament got underway yesterday. It started while we were on the air. It went well into the afternoon. Very quickly, Slovakia, who came into yesterday's game as a plus 325 underdog against the Finns

scored an impressive win, thanks to a two-gold performance from Uri Slavkovsky. And in the second and final game of the day, Sweden got a major scare, but avoided the upset by putting away Italy 5-2, despite the game going deep into the second period tied to two. Where do you want to start, Jason? Well, I think all eyes in Vancouver were on Elias Pedersen for Sweden. Pettersen, like his teammates, weren't all that effective through the first two periods. and then the third period, they looked a lot better

as I think Italy started to wear out a little bit. They had a goaltending injury. That was caused by Elias Pedersen, not intentionally, but deeked the Italian goalie out, and the Italian goalie went, well, that hurts. Yep.

You know, and I think Pedersen had a good third period. He hit a post, as Drancer tweeted out, he had a post, had that shorthanded breakaway on which the Italian goalie was injured. And on Zabanajad's, was that the winning goal or the fourth goal?

I think it was the fourth goal. So it was kind of the insurance goal. He had a good screen of the new Italian goalie. He was good. And, you know, these things are always tough to analyze because, you know, you get some people say like, great, he was good, period. I hope he does well.

And others be like, pia, against Italy. In 13 minutes and 22 seconds of ice time, second lowest among all forwards. Sorry, third lowest, because you have to put Philip Forsberg in there. We'll get to him in a second. Yeah. So I think basically the Petterson performance was like a typical Canucks performance where his fans are like, look at all the good things he did. And then his detractors are like, yeah, you know, like against Italy.

You know, it always depends on how, in some ways. how you want to look at the performance. And then the neutrals will be like, it was fine. The neutrals were like, Italy, Sweden. I wasn't watching that. Yeah. So the line of Pedersen, Zabinajad, and Raquel was deployed, at least in terms of time on ice, as a fourth line.

Their top line was Ericksonac between Kempe and Nielander. But if you look at the ice times, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot differentiating line one from four. The top line guys were in around 16 and a half, 17 minutes. and the fourth line guys were in around 13 and a half. Yeah, Sam-Lam rolled his lines, except for you, Forsberg. Well, that was probably one of the reasons why he said.

He just, the coach wanted to, wanted to roll lines, and there has to be a 13th forward. I thought it might have been Pontus Holmberg. But he was a big minute man, relatively speaking. So here's the thing about when these guys go to the Olympics and any international competition, really, there is an element of,

especially with certain coaches, I've noticed some of the European countries. There's almost a real concerted effort about checking your ego at the door to the point where I often wonder. And this is just me pontificating. But I often wonder if sometimes they do it to more higher profile guys to say, hey, look, if this guy can do it, anybody can do it. Because on the blue line, Oliver Ekman Larson was the seventh event'sman. And he sat there on the bench the entire game and played zero minutes, zero seconds. That's embarrassing.

I don't really, you know, I know you're supposed to check your ego, but this is one of the issues with the dressing of 20 skaters. So you can go 12 forwards and four pairs and then roll the pairs if you want. But most teams, and I think they do this for injury insurance purposes, they'll go 13 forwards and 7D men. So you're going to get a guy like Philip Forsberg, who doesn't have a line and then OEL

who didn't have a pair. And they just sit there. And it's shocking to see. Especially in the case of Forrestberg. Forrestberg in his mustache. An incredibly decorated NHLer and just sitting there basically open and closing the door.

But this is how this tournament will work. And I would not be surprised if in another game, Forsberg works his way into one of those spots and it's another guy. By the way, I do love Google Translate. So I went last night

and looked on Expressen, which is one of the big Swedish news outlets. And the headline is, Philip Foresburg on the poking. Of course, it is difficult. I later realized that I don't think scratching, like a healthy scratch translates that well. And I'm pretty sure that's what it ended up being,

a poking. A poking. Yeah, he got poked all the way down. But he didn't, wasn't technically a full boat. He only got poked once to go over the bench. Yeah, he's like, go now. You get a minute to play.

So that was the Swedish story. The Italians did throw a pretty good scare. into the Swedes. I'm not sure if Sweden ever actually felt it because the shot totals were so one-sided. It was interesting listening to a bunch of the Swedish players when they came off the ice yesterday

because they were like, yeah, it was closer than we thought it was going to be, but we also outshot Italy 60 to 22. So you can't say that they didn't generate chances. It was an all-timer performance from the Swedish goal league, Damien, Clara. And Laddie, you're familiar with this guy because he's actually a fairly high draft pick

in the Anaheim organization. Yeah, he was a guy I heavily scouted a lot and I really liked him. He's super raw because he came up in Italy, right? He didn't have a great foundation until he... He's a tall dude. Super tall, he's got the size and he's actually a pretty decent skater for a guy who's 6'6 or whatever he is.

Usually those bigger guys kind of struggle in that regard but he's super calm. You saw the extension that he got on that save that he made up Pedersen where he got hurt. Insane splits, right? He just kept coming. He's so good at covering the lower portion of the net. That's what happened there.

He went too far. So I was super. bombed when he got pulled from the game. It was a great save. He had to do it. But man, that was quite the run he was on. Lucas Raymond with the understatement of the tournament so far. Usually 60 shots is enough, he says. Thank you Lucas Raymond for pointing that out. Well, it was pretty cool to see East Vancouver's Matt Bradley score for Italy. And our friend Patrick Johnston actually wrote a feature on Matt Bradley playing for Italy in the Vancouver process. And we're And it's a good piece. I recommend. You can search it out if you want to look at it.

Matt Bradley, he started playing for Vancouver Minor, which is kind of East Van. And then his family moved to White Rock, where he kept playing for Sammy Amu. He played for the Surrey Eagles, the medicine hat tigers. He played a lot of hockey. And then I think he was in the habs. organization and then didn't make the HABs went over to Europe. At any rate, he's now representing Italy for the Olympics. Well, how is he doing that? Well, his grandpa is from Italy. His nono. His no-no. And some people have been misquoting on because he's done all sorts of shoutouts to his no-no. And people were saying that it's his no-na, but it's his no-no. No-no is his grandfather.

No, nah, it's his grandmother. It's his grandfather. And the best quote I got was, or Pige got that I read, he was asked what it's like playing in Italy. And he said, well, there's little things. Just the way guys talk to each other and the screaming matches and the talking with your hands, little things like that reminds me of home.

So nice. You know what I miss about home? The screaming matches. The yelling and the hands and the screaming and the hands. And the emotions. Heartwarming. So that was. The touching of the faces.

The constant touching of the faces. Right, right. Always caressing. Just gently caressing. So there was. It's aggressive. There was. That was the second of the two games yesterday.

The first game, Slovakia and Finland was underway while we were on the air. And we got to see Yer Slavkovsky open the scoring. He went on to add a second goal. As Slovakia upset Finland four, in the first game of this much Ballyhoo tournament with the return of NHLers to Olympic competition. I forgot that Slavkovsky was the Olympic MVP in 2022 the last time it was without NHLers.

And he sort of picked up right where he left off. But another goal-tending question for you, Laddie, and I know you don't know a ton of a lot about the guy, but Samuel Halavai stopping 39 of 40 shots faced against the Finns. This is a guy who is split time, the season between the American League and the ECHL in the Minnesota Wild organization and one of the guys that is

working with him and kind of unearthed him as a prospect is none other than former Canucks folk legend Richard Bachman who is now a goalie consultant for the Minnesota Wild organization. That performance by the way was for Elliot Friedman because I heard Frege breaking down the Slovak's chances in this tournament and he was

Like, yeah, I mean, I don't know about their goaltending. I mean, he wasn't wrong to question the goaltending. It's got an 880 in the AHA. Yeah, here's a guy that's like not, you know, he's not in the NHL and his numbers aren't great in the HAL. By all accounts, the ECHL stint was because he was performing so poorly in the American League as well. Did you know anything about this guy? And I'm asking you in particular because you know more about goalies than anybody I know. And this guy appeared like, there were some people I was listening to some coverage yesterday.

and they're like, just full on a minute, they're like, I have no idea, had no idea who Samuel Halavai was going into this tournament. Yeah, he's not, he was never like super high on any of my lists. He was, he came out of the Quebec League. He played a couple years with Sherbrook. Good numbers. He's got the size, which is obviously if you have the size,

it kind of puts you ahead of the pack just automatically. So he's always kind of in the mix. His name's always kind of been around, but he's never been seen as like a top tier prospect or a big, even big name in the goalie world, right? So the fact that you went out there and did that, a guy who's, you know, struggled by the numbers this year in the AHL to do that at the Olympic level. That's what the Olympics is all about.

It's rising to the occasion, right? It's awesome. I was just going to say that. This is what we see in the Olympics, often from the goaltending position, because there are some mismatches on the ice. As for Finland, it was always going to be tough without Barkoff. Just ask the Florida Panthers this season. So we'll see how they bounce back.

They're going to have to play Sweden soon. Quick note about the format. If you're just wondering, you know, Canada, the men are playing their first game today. So a lot of people are like, well, it's the format anyway. So there's 12 teams. They're split into three groups. The top team of each group and the best second rank team. I imagine they do that based on, I don't know, points are goal differential.

They advance to the quarterfinals. So there's four teams that automatically advance. out of the group stage into the quarterfinals. All the other teams playing a qualification round. So in other words you cannot be eliminated

in the group stage. But if you're one of the top teams, you do want to avoid a qualification game if you can. Finland, for example, probably going to need to beat Sweden tomorrow to avoid that fate. So it was the same format

back in 2014 the last time the NHL, played. That year, Canada won its group, but they needed overtime to beat Finland in the group stage. So Canada was actually the third seed heading into the playoffs behind Sweden and the US. Canada ended up playing the winner of Switzerland and Latvia. That was Latvia, which very nearly pulled a massive upset in the quarterfinals, but Canada escaped that, thanks to Shea Weber, they beat the U.S. in the semis and then Sweden in the final. Well, if you go all the way back to 2010, Canada actually found itself in the qualification round

because they were the sixth seed coming out of the group. Because you'll remember, in addition to the loss to the U.S. in the group stage, which was Marty Bauder's last game where Longo took over. They also went to a shootout against Switzerland and won in the shootout. So they finished six and they had to play Germany. And not many people remember that game because it was an absolute blowout. It was 8-2. But the Canadians had to play an extra game.

And it actually, in a very weird round about way, and I know we'll talk about this later, gave Luongo an extra game to kind of find his footing before they had to go up against Russia, Slovakia, and then, of course, a rematch against the U.S. in the finals. Yeah, the Russians were the higher-seated team when the Canada blasted them. Yeah, the Russians kind of coasted through the group.

And, you know, I remember there was some conversation at the time that going into that qualification around for Canada might not have been the worst thing because it gave them an extra game to play. There was very little chance they were going to lose because the other teams in the qualification at that point were like Belarus, Norway and Slovakia. There were some minnows in there for sure. But getting through it and winning that game and giving everybody an extra chance to skate together ended up proving to be a good thing.

By the way, a couple notes on the rank and the ice. I wanted to try and get some information on this. So I was reading and listening to a few things yesterday. Brian Boucher reportedly on the NBC broadcast noted that the building was rather warm and there was a ton of snow accumulation on the ice especially by the second game and that it really started to play

with the quality of play and I guess Cassie Campbell Pascal on our panel up here said that the ice going into the dasherboards and the kickboards it's not flush to the boards it actually kind of dips in so there's a bunch of weird when people are like rimming pucks and everything,

there's a bunch of really weird bounces and all the puck battles along the boards. That seems safe. Yeah, it doesn't sound great for safety, but it also like, for example, if you're going to watch Binnington come out of his net today, pay attention to how aggressive he is coming out because apparently pucks that are going around the boards and going around the rims are taking all kinds of crazy bounces. And Binnington is expected to start in goal.

We don't know for sure, but that's the expectation. according to Elliot Friedman, Darcy Kemper, defenseman Travis Sanheim, and forward Seth Jarvis skated this morning indicating they will not dress this afternoon. So no Kemper, no Sanheim, no Seth Jarvis,

which brings me, brings us to the biggest question mark for Canada, I think, and that's in goal. It's crazy to me that if Canada makes the gold medal game, we have no idea which of the three goalies will be the starter. Now, I think today's news that Darcy Kemper won't dress probably puts him in the very unlikely category

to be the starter because it's very unusual for a Canadian team to go through. It's like trying to first goalie doesn't work, second goalie doesn't work, you know, then you go to a third goalie. If you see all three goalies in this tournament, it means the tournament's not going well for Canada. Yeah.

in 2014 since we're going back it was easy Kerry Price was the guy he only allowed three goals the entire tournament and finished with a save percentage of get this laddie 972 it's not bad it's good pretty good shut out the Americans in the semifinal shut out Sweden in the final no issues with goaltending that year

in 2010 bit more complicated that year you might remember a guy by the name of Roberto Luongo, helping Canada to gold. He didn't start the tournament as the number one in most people's mind. He started the first game, but it wasn't, I think it was against Germany. He only replaced Marty Breder, or Norway or something like that. He only replaced Marty Breder after Breder lost to the United States in the final group stage game. Now, you may recall that Luongo had a bit of a reputation.

of being a great regular season goalie, but not so much when the games really matter. Did anyone remember that? Yeah, a little bit of that in Vancouver. I've blocked it out of my mind. I don't remember it. A couple series against the Chicago Blackhawks that didn't go so well for Lou.

Bennington's almost the opposite. He's known as the big game goalie, and he has a Stanley Cup to prove it, and he won the Four Nations. But his regular season this year has been horrendous. Not good. Not good at all. And, you know, there's a lot of comps to be made here between what Luongo did in 2010. And I think we should, you mentioned Kerry Price in 2014, almost being like the greatest scenario you could have is you had a number one. It was easy for him, though. He was easy. Sure. But it was Babcock's style and the way the team played defensively. But here's the thing. Carrie Price was just like, he was falling asleep. Here's the thing. He didn't let in any softies. And that's what Luongo did in 2010. And if we're, going to be perfectly honest.

That's what Bennington did in the four nations that had a lot of people concerned. You got to remember before clamping down in the final, Bittington gave up three third period goals to Finland in a game that looked like it was comfortable and then suddenly wasn't. And if you want to sort of put a synopsis on his entire tournament before beating the Americans in the final, every game had at least one goal that people thought Bindington would want back. They were counted as three soft goals over the course of three games. And it was made, you know, kind of a little bit more alarming because all the games were really close, right? Every game was decided by one or two goals.

Well, there's no minnows in that tournament. That's the thing. When Luongo went, and I remember this distinctly, when he regained the net, and he did regain the net, because you're right, he did start the tournament. But what Canada did there is they didn't even dress Broder in the first game. Luongo started, and Mark Andre Fleury got his only game, and he dressed as a backup. Broder came in and then played the two games. and after they lost 5'3 to the U.S. Luongo went back in,

played against Germany, they won 82. He was okay there. The two goals against were sort of like whatever. He led in a not great goal in the 7-3 win over Russia. I think it was a point shot from Gonchar. And then in the Slovakia game in the semifinal, that was the one that got everybody's like nerves ratcheted up because Luongo gave up a really bad goal to Lubbamir Vizanovsky

that he said after the game he wished he had had back. that it was a 3-0 game for Canada it kind of allowed the Slovaks back into the game and that ended up being a 3-2 game and that was really close way closer than everybody expected so going into the final there was a very similar vibe with

Binnington at the Four Nations where it's like yes we've won this guy's back stopped us to the wins that we needed to get to this level but it hasn't been picturesque with Luongo in the final I mean we were talking about this last night Bruff and I trading notes even in the final there was a goal of the Kessler tip

where like Babcock called out Luongo for it. Yeah. After they had won gold, he's like, Ah, Lou probably wanted that one back. I remember James, I still remember James Myrtle with a tweet. I think it was that game.

It could have been a Canucks game, but it was like, it was a typical Luongo, like he made the save and Myrtle tweeted out, awkward, save Luongo, like kind of a play on Jim Houston. Yeah.

You know? And that's what it was. But he got the job done. Okay. We were so spoiled with Carrie Price, by the way. I just pulled up his numbers here for Canada. Since the World Junior

onward in his career. You played for Canada three times. He was 16 and 0. He didn't lose a game. Not bad. He played an Olympic Games, a world juniors, and a World Cup of Hockey. He did not lose. I want to test this out. I want to test this out before we go to break. Can we play our Olympic spoiler stinger please right now? It's Olympic spoiler time. Turn those radios off. We're a little behind here, but I will say that Canada is up one-nothing on the fins and the

women's side of the things here. Jennifer Gardner scored with just about five Five minutes remaining in the first period. The big news here, two of them actually. Marie-Philippe Poulin did not play again. And Sarah Filier went down with an injury. She's back on the bench now, but it looked really bad. Yeah, it looked horrific. I'm not digging this.

They're only out shooting the Finns 9 to 8. Right. This Canadian women's team needs to improve a lot. If they are first of all going to get to the gold medal game, which they still should. But there have been upset. There have been upsets. and if they've got any chance of beating the Americans,

they better up their game. They went back to Debian, too. Yeah, they did go back to Davey on. I noticed that, yeah. And I do wonder if they're just going to try and take this game into the gutters and the sewers and try and win ugly because that might be the way to do it, especially against the Americans,

it's just win but win ugly. But we'll see what happens. Anyway, Canada up won nothing on Finland. We're five minutes into the second period there. There's a ton of Olympic hockey that we've got to get into that both tournaments are well underway now. We're very excited to be doing this. You're listening to the Halford-imbruff show on Sportsnet, 650.

Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drans. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on SportsNet 650 or wherever you get your podcast. 632 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford, Brough, SportsNet 650. Are you getting fired up out there in listener land? We're like an hour away to end 12 years of waiting.

Okay, I shouldn't do this either, but... Not so fired up, I guess. A lot of people texting in and wondering if they can listen to the game on the radio. If it's on our station, it's not on our station. Best bet for you, get the CBC Gem app on your phone. Is it available on desktop, probably? I don't know. Yeah, if you have an account, you can sign in.

I don't know what either of those words mean. Okay. Yeah. And then just stream it that way. It'll be the video, but you can listen to the audio too. That's my only solution. My solution would be listen to the Halford-embrough show. throughout the Canada game specifically,

where we will give you updates. But if you don't want to hear those updates, we provide Stinger music, spoiler music to let you know that an update is coming. Who can't pick, spoiler time, turn those radios off? Who serves the listeners better than us, Jason? I know.

Who, I ask. Sean Reynolds is going to join us live from Milan in a second here. Before we get to him, I need to remind everybody that we are an hour one of the program. And hour one is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's Premier Metal Recycling. pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle.

You get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. While the tournament is underway, for many of us, it gets underway in about an hour's time. Canada will take on check it. 740 our time. Our next guest is live in Italy. Sean Reynolds from SportsNet joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Sean. How are you? I'm doing great.

How are you guys? We're good. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Set the scene for us there ahead of Canada's game. I know the tournament's underway, and I know the tournament's underway. and I know there was a game this morning as well. I'll save the score for those in case we don't want to do a spoiler. But set the scene, the excitement level, the energy going into this first game for Canada. Well, we're kind of all over the place because right now the I-IHF, the NHL and the NHLPA are doing a joint press conference.

So we're downstairs. So I can tell you that's got the media area of buzz. You take a peek out the windows and the doors here to see people inside Santa Julie. arena, getting ready to come in and file in for the game between Team Chekiya and Canada. So it's one of those like everything is happening moments and everyone's just kind of running around and excited. And yeah, if it's anything like what it was last night when the Swedes played Team Italy, that was there was a lot of popped in the crowd there, especially the kind of scare that Team Italy gave to Team Sweden. So it's, I'll tell you this, you know, I was a massive, massive fan of Olympic hockey back when they were still having it.

I hadn't started this job yet. The last time there was NHL hockey. So it's good to see it back. It's really, really good to see Olympic hockey back. Well, that's cool that you get to experience it. So there was a lot of concern about the arena and the ice. Is everything good, the arena good, the ice good? Or what are the reviews so far?

I mean, from the players, the reviews are good. I'm wondering to a degree if the press conference that's happening right now is going to address that. It was to me a fascinating story because you heard all this and the NHL was talking about it. Gary Bettman and Bill Adelaide had come to Winnipeg at some point and we talked to them there and they'd said like the concern for them is the ice. They were leaving it way too late if the ice was good. The players were not going. and you know you'd wonder if it was just much ado about nothing and you got here

and then I talked to the head ice maker who said you know the Monday before the Olympics were starting at the previous Monday he didn't think it was going to happen like that they were not going to pull it off he said they were they were worried they were going to be the laughing stock of the world so it really did come down to the last minute here and a lot of that had to do with the construction of the arena itself meant that there was so much dust and debris in the air that they didn't they held off on making ice when when they were even starting late and they held off even further because they were worried about you know the ice being ruined by the dust of the construction uh you know problems in the air so uh it really did go down down to

the wire all that said asked the players about it uh one of them on team cana had said they thought that it was just a lot of talk uh for nothing but they showed up just to step out on the ice that was in a good position. Dave had thought it was much to do about nothing. The ice maker himself definitely didn't think that he was really worried down for the last second. Okay, Jordan Binnington.

Is he starting a goal for Canada today? Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting. We talked with Doug Armstrong the other day and he had a really good answer. I thought about Bennington and kind of, you know, when you're scouting

these guys, you're not just scouting for skill and all those things and capabilities. You're scouting for guys who are going to step up in the big, big moments, right? And he clearly has believed for a long time and believed that before the Four Nations tournament that Jordan Bennington was that guy. And it's fascinating to see the response to that because, look, on the surface, everyone's going to look at Jordan Bennington and see his numbers this

year and think, like, what a terrible spot Canada is in. And for Canada, it was almost like there was no other guy to start with. And it's so funny to think that because I think some people have thought with the American side and their three goaltenders, maybe Connor Hell about the way he's played this year, you know, was in trouble, although they named him the starter as well. But, I mean, Jordan Biddington was brought on his team last year because they believed that the most crucial of moments he would step up. And that's exactly what he did.

And then I can tell you, I covered the series last year. I thought it was one of the best playoff series we've seen in a long time that St. Louis Blues Winnipeg Jets series last year. He was hands down, hands down the better goaltender in that series against Connor Hellenberg who won the Hart Trophy last year. So all I have seen since this theory was put forward that Jordan Binnington was going to step up in the moments that mattered is a goaltender that has absolutely done that in spades. So Doug Armstrong said he was a little nervous when he had.

him on the team for four nations that he kind of staked, you know, a bit of his reputation on this. He was very, very happy when it so happened that Jordan Bennington, you know, really, really allowed that to pay off for him. Well, Doug's reputation is still on the line because this is the Olympics and we all enjoyed Four Nations, but this is more important. And I think Jordan Bennington's regular season, it hasn't just been so, so. It's been downright bad, you know? So I, listen, I, I remember him going to Boston and game seven in the Stanley Cup finals and I remember I thought the Bruins were going to win that and he was brilliant in that so like he he is a big game goalie but I but I think sometimes you're kind of like okay but how far can that really carry you

I mean the last few games he played for the blues in the NHL he was giving up goals left right and center meanwhile you got a guy in Logan Thompson who doesn't have the big game experience of Jordan Bennington but his numbers are significantly better than this season. So how loyal do you think they'll be to Jordan Bennington in this tournament? I think they'll be really loyal. And I mean, to a degree, I think there would be a lot that would need to fall apart for that. And I just don't think there's the opportunity for that to happen, right? Like the Canadians are playing the checks tonight. That will be their stiffest test, you know, or it should be their stiffest test in the, you know, the round

robin stage of this, you know, I don't know that, that you're playing France and being tested to the degree that it's going to expose Jordan Bennington and have him, you know, taken out of the net in this situation. So I don't know. It'll be pretty tricky. I think a lot of it with goalies is predetermined. And I think one of the things that's really hard to see with this. And this is the difference. I think between, you know, scouts and your average hockey fan or even us in the media is it can be tough to see what a goaltender looks like under different circumstances. I've got the perfect front seat to that in Winnipeg where, again, last year Connor Hellebuk was the heart trophy winner, the MVP of the league, but he did show behind a team that was suffocating, suffocating defensively. Now the Winnipeg Jets really have lost something defensively this season, and Connor Hellebuck has struggled behind that.

right so he's a goaltender that team USA could have looked at and said you know we're going to put jeremy swayman in ahead of them we're going to put jake ottinger in ahead of them they're banking on the idea that once you put connor hellabuck back behind a really suffocating defensive

team that you're going to get that version of him that you got last time and that's the thing that canada is looking at with jordan vinington is the blues i think if i'm not mistaken i think their third last in the league right now they've played like it if you talked to their head coach.

So a goaltender behind a team that, you know, is playing fairly poorly. Hey, you can expect goalies sometimes to steal games and this. I don't think you can expect them to steal a season. No doubt Jordan Binnington is not doing that. But it was a similar situation last year. But when things got on the line at every turn, Jordan Binnington was responding well. So that's what they're expecting to see from the goalie in this situation. So, Sean, that actually brings us to the next topic, and it's a really interesting one, because back in 2014, when Mike Babcock was the head coach, Canada had an ultra-talented team, obviously, I mean, I think they were, well, they had carry pricing goal, that's pretty good. Their blue line was deep, that was incredible, a bunch of Hall of Famers on that, and the forward group was obviously very good as well. And Mike Babcock coached a very very,

very, very stifling, defensive style that a lot of people are actually like, hey, like, this is kind of boring to watch. What is the identity of this Canadian team going to be under John Cooper? Well, we don't know yet, and they don't know yet. And they've said as much. I mean, they said that's something that they will develop as they go along. And all that said, I think it's going to be very similar to what you saw from the Four Nations, although I think what you saw in the Four Nations was a little bit of an evolution of that team. And I think that they do believe that that evolution is going to kind of pick up where that left off,

but continue. But the one thing that's been said over and over again when you talk to these players and these coaches is that there's just a belief that all these players can play defense, right? Like they're, they're not deficient in any way. Everyone's got an all-around game. So it's almost like the idea of an identity is that, you know, like, hey, if we're the Bruins in the 70s, you know, or the Flyers, we need to, we're going to play you really rough. And if you're the 80s, oilers, we're going to play, you know,

really fast and loose and those kind of things. These are players at this stage that can basically play it any way you want it. So it's almost like what is an identity if you are good at absolutely everything? You don't need to rely on one thing to be the team. This team is going to be able to beat you with defense. It's going to be able to beat you with offense. It's going to be able to beat you with toughness. It's going to be able to beat you with skill.

And to be honest, the states are probably in a very similar position. So it's a great question because I was mowing over this the other day and identity and all these different kind of things. And it just almost seems like it's hard to have an identity when you can beat everything all at once. Yeah. And is that when you say that everyone can defend, is that the answer to the question?

Why isn't Evan Bouchard on this team? Why isn't Connor Baudard on this team? Yeah, that's exactly it. And I would say, and again, I don't want to turn this into a Winnipeg thing, but I've got these experiences. A lot of people we're talking about Mark Sheifley and why he's not on this team.

I think he's, you know, I forget where he landed by the time we got, but I think he's around top five or top six in Canadian scores. And Mark Schaifle is a guy who had a reputation at one time for not being the best defensive player, and he's turned that around over the years, but probably the fact that he used to be that and has evolved from that and become better, still counts against him,

because Nick Suzuki is younger and already doing those things and has already established him as this great two-way player. Mark Shifley, for the first decade of his career, was considered a highly offensive guy, but maybe not the best defensively. So you absolutely nail it there. Like the guy, like, hey, Sam Bennett, you know, is the guy who didn't make this team.

He's playoff MVP. I thought he scored the second most important goal at the Four Nations and didn't make this team. but hey, I covered him in the final last year against the Edminton Oilers, and here's a guy who, like I said, great defensively, can play it rough, was one of the best scoring forwards in the playoffs last year, can do absolutely everything. So you nailed it, like Connor Bedard, I know I'm sure there's a lot of people out there

who are saying, you know, should have been on this team, we want to get the young guys in there so that when 2030 comes around, he's already got that experience under his belt, but you're going to be able to argue that his game is not as complete, and all of these other players have these complete games. And, you know, I just wanted to bring up one little thing, guys, unprompted in this, because I think this is the fascinating part of this whole thing. Kail McCar had talked about the idea of every guy on the team being so complete,

and one of the problems they ran into it, the Four Nations, was the idea that because everybody is so good, you're kind of constantly passing it to the next guy because he's so good. Well, hey, I should give it to Connor McDavid and then you should give it to Nathan McKinnon and so on and so forth. He said one of the keys for this team is going to be each individual finding a way to be a little bit selfish and realizing they're all some of the best players in the league

and being like, I want to be the guy to put the puck in the back of the net and win this. And if you heard the audio, John Cooper says something very similar and apparently it was a big message of his towards the players as that Four Nations tournament went along was like, someone's got to be the guy. I know you're all thinking, we're all, hey, we're all on Mount Rushmore, except it's a Mount Rushmore of 23 guys.

Every once in a while you have to stand above the crowd, and that's the challenge that Canada had at Four Nations that they're hoping that learning routine that they went through there is going to make them even more deadly at this tournament. Was Cail McCar asked why the Colorado power play has struggled? Was Nathan McKinnon asked why the Colorado power play has struggled? Because I think that's one of the most interesting dynamics heading into this. On paper, Canada should score every time they get a man advantage.

They got McCar, McKinnon, McDavid, Ryanhart, Crosby out on their first unit, and their second unit isn't too bad either. But, you know, the people that were advocating for Bouchard to be on Team Canada, But a lot of it was look at the, you know, the chemistry he's got with a guy like McDavid on the powerplay. Look how good he is on the power play. Look how good the Oilers power play is compared to Colorado. Has there been any talk about that because special teams are going to play a role in this? Well, a lot of that has to do with Pete DeBore, who had an interesting chat with John Cooper about the idea of Pete DeBore, you know, got let go by the Dallas Star.

last year hasn't got a job back in the NHL yet. And I think Team Canada was tickled pink about that, right? Because now he's completely and fully dedicated to Team Canada this year. And it showed in their scouting. Apparently he showed up a week early here in Milan to kind of learn the train systems and places to go and places to see. And John Cooper talked about how helpful that was. The team kind of landed and hit the ground running because of Pete DeBore.

He's the guy too who's here to be a bit of. of, you know, all their systems and special teams and things like that. So I think that you've had a guy now who's been digging into this and taking a look at what happened at the Four Nations and being like, okay, we really, really need to figure out, you know, who are going to fit into these roles when every single person could fit into these roles. But the one thing I'll say, guys, and I notice it when I'm watching the U.S. practice. I've noticed it when I'm watching Sweden practice,

definitely when I'm noticing Canada practice. You've got these elite power play units, right? You've got these extremely elite penalty-killer units as well. And so it's just interesting to see, you know, you're expecting like everything to be like that very first goal, that power play goal that Canada scored at the Four Nations, but it was just like pitt-tac-toe boom in the back to the net, and you were thinking, man, it's just going to be like this for every single powerplay.

and it doesn't end up being that way because there's these elite, elite, elite shutdown penalty killers on every single team or definitely on three or four of these teams here. So when you're watching the practices, you're looking for that tick-tac-toe and really there's just no room out there.

It's just so suffocating and the players are all so fast that it's going to be like a razor's edge type of goal every time. It's not going to be those kind of goals where the team that you're playing gets completely, lost in their coverage and all of a sudden it's in the back of the net and gets twisted around. It's going to be there's a fraction of a second that I got my stick

to the puck before you did and it ended up in the back of the net. Sean, one more for you before we let you go. Canada, Team Canada, hockey Canada has just put out the lineup and formation for today's game on social media. So no huge surprises. All the lines and deep parings as we saw them in practice

remain the same. Bennett's going to dress as the 13th forward. Jarvis is not going to dress. Thadore is going to dress. Thayador is going to is the seventh defenseman, Sanheim's not going to dress. With regards to Bennett and Theodore, do you have any inkling on what their deployment might look like? Because we just finished talking about what Sweden did yesterday,

where Philip Forsberg played a minute, and that was one more minute than Oliver Ekman-Larsson played on defense, where they both basically sat there the entire game. I don't know if Canada has the same idea. I don't know if you have an idea of how that's going to play out. Just curious to get your thoughts on it. Well, I wish I could give you any kind of insight on this. Now, I would have been able to if it was Seth Jarvis, who was dressed as the 13th Ford,

but that's about the case. And it was kind of fascinating to see that as Team Canada was practicing yesterday, they were working Seth Jarvis in on the first line alongside Macklin-Solabrini and Connor McDavid and working Tom Wilson out of the lineup there. And on the face of it, I thought, how interesting is it to see a guy go from, like probably not dressing for this game to practicing with the top line. But I guess it makes sense when you're talking about like elite, elite players one after the other. You can be the kind of player who goes from not playing to the very top line.

When I asked John Cooper about that, he'd said everything is just about using every opportunity they have to kind of find chemistry. And, you know, he'd said this was a great line, I thought, because when you see the speed of these practices, Dylan Larkin said to me that the practices are so fast, they almost ruin NHL hockey for him, but when you see the speed of it, John Cooper said, you've got to see who can keep up with who, right? And you never think about that.

The speed that some guys play at, you may think this guy's not as skilled as this other guy, but maybe it's just as simple as getting someone as fast as that player out there. So I don't know that this probably isn't the kind of game where we would see that because the checks are the real deal, right? They've got a couple players who are in the top 20 in scoring. You're not going out there practicing with them, right? Unless things aren't going well.

If things aren't going well, maybe you'd juggle the lines to see if you can't get a spark here or there. But I would suggest maybe if this was a game against France, that you'd be seeing some guys go here or there and they'd be trying to use it as an opportunity to find some chemistry here or there. That's me talking around not knowing any kind of legit. legitimate answer to your question, so I hope I didn't just waste your listeners' time.

No, Sean, great insight. We love it. We're very excited for the turn on. I imagine you are as well. With that, we'll let you go. Enjoy the game today and the games over the weekend. Let's try and do this again next week. Anytime, guys. Thanks, Sean. That's Sean Reynolds Sportsnet Olympic Reporter,

live from Milan here on the Halford and Breath Show on Sportsnet 650. Laddie, fire up that stinger. We got more updates from the women's. It's a big spoiler time. Turn those radios off. through two periods between Canada and Finland, the women's Olympic hockey tournament. Canada up 3-0-0. Much better period for the Canadians.

Goals. So Gardner scored in the first to make it 1-0-0 in kind of a flat period for Canada. Watson O'Neill scored roughly two minutes apart early in the second and a pretty dominant second period from Canada as they now push their lead to 3-0 on Finland. Shots are now 20 to 10 in favor of the Canadians as well. Okay, we're going to go to break. When we come back, we're going to have an open segment on the other side. If you want to weigh in with any questions, comments, concerns, or otherwise, into the Dunbar Lumber text message, Jim Basket, you can do so. 7.30 right before puck drop with the Canadians and the checks. We're going to talk to Stephen Houska, not a hockey analyst by trade.

A former place kicker, of course, won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks in 2013, and was working with this year's Seahawks team as a culture consultant. He helped head coach Mike McDonald build team culture in Seattle this year. And I don't know if you're aware of this or not, has been a real buzzword locally with the local hockey squadrons. So we'll talk to Stephen Housh about that at 7.30. We will be keeping a very close eye, goes without saying, on the Canada-Chekia game.

We will be doing updates, the spoiler music you heard, if you're taping the game or PVRing it or whatever. We will give you lots of advance notice about the updates, but we got two more hours to go on the show. Canada and Chequia go at 7.40 this morning from Italy. You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650.